Burt Swersey has been teaching design and problem solving courses at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for the past for the past 16 years. His courses include Inventor's Studio (a capstone design course), Introduction To Engineering Design and Studio One of Product Design and Innovation, which combines the study of engineering and the humanities.
Prior to his role at RPI, Swersey spent 25 years starting and running 4 medical equipment companies. He holds over 15 US patents.
Burt Swersey is a graduate of Cornell University.
John Blackburn is president of BullEx Digital Safety, a company that has developed a novel clean-burning, safe and effective fire extinguisher training system. The invention was sparked in an undergraduate engineering course at RPI.
John Blackburn is a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Bill Grant is the Program Manager of the Technology Management Program at University of California - Santa Barbara's (UCSB) College of Engineering. Grant facilitates intimate working luncheons, 'Leaders in Innovation' seminars, lectures, cable tv, and his "On the Edge" radio program on KCSB91.9FM. Created and hosted by Grant and UCSB students, the weekly show features successful entrepreneurs and innovators and discusses how ideas become inventions.
In 2007, Grant received the Olympus Emerging Educational Leader Award for his work at UCSB in creating and managing extracurricular activities that enable students to network and share knowledge and experience with successful scientists, entrepreneurs, innovators and other business experts.
Paul Hudnut is Director of the Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise Program at Colorado State University and teaches entrepreneurship classes at the College of Business. He is also Co-Director of CSU's Global Innovation Center for Energy, Health & Environment and serves as Chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the Rocky Mountain Regional Center of Excellence in Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases. Hudnut is a visiting instructor in entrepreneurship at the Bordeaux Business School and Bainbridge Graduate Institute.
Hudnut's background and interest is in building companies, technology transfer, and intellectual property in the bioscience, energy and information services industries. He is particularly interested in business models which emphasize an entrepreneurial approach to global issues of environment and health.
Hudnut is a founder and director of Envirofit International, Ltd., which was a TechAward laureate in 2005 and was recently recognized by Stanford Social Innovation Review for its innovative approach for commercializing environmentally friendly technologies in the developing world.
Prior to joining CSU, Mr. Hudnut was an executive at Heska Corporation, U S WEST Marketing Resources and PR Pharmaceuticals.
Paul Hudnut earned his BA from Colorado College and his law degree from University of Virginia and completed the Program for Management Development at the Harvard Business School in 1991.
Caroline Baillie is the Dupont Canada Chair of Engineering Education Research and Development at Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Her role is to enhance the learning experience of engineering students across the Faculty whilst maintaining her research and teaching interests in materials science and engineering. She is cross-appointed into the Departments of Chemical Engineering, Sociology and Women's Studies.
Baillie is also a member of Critical Stage Company, which is "committed to new writing, or tackling established pieces in a new way..." Through Critical Stage and the Integrated Learning Centre at Queen's University, she has put on several productions using student and members of the Kingston community that link to the themes of engineering and society.
In popular culture, Baillie is best known as the host of "Building the Impossible", a four part documentary commissioned by the BBC in which a team of experts undertook the challenge of building historical inventions to their original specification to see if they really worked.
Baillie was formerly deputy director of the UK Centre for Materials Education at Liverpool University, Liverpool, United Kingdom. She was also formerly a lecturer at the Dept. of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and at Imperial College London.
Baillie has over 100 publications in materials science and education and is the author of four books on teaching and learning. Her recent publications include, 'Travelling facts: the Social Construction, Distribution and Accumulation of Knowledge', Campus Press and 'Effective Learning and Teaching in Engineering', Routledge.
Caroline Baillie obtained her PhD from the University of Surrey, Department of Materials, in 1991 and her Master of Higher Education at the University of New South Wales in 1995.
Katie Lucchesi and Chaun Sims are both students at Colorado State University who placed third in the 2006 University of Colorado at Boulder Cleantech Innovators' Challenge for their company, Bright Light Innovations.
Bright Light Innovations produces the Firefly Stove, an inexpensive stove that provides heat and electricity without emitting harmful kerosene or wood smoke. The company says it is designed for use in homes without electricity in developing countries. But the stove isn't just for cooking and warming a room. Because it uses a thermo-electric generator, a device that converts heat from the stove into electricity, the electricity generated can be used for light or stored in a battery for use at a later time.
Since placing third and winning $5,000 in the contest, Bright Light Innovations has received a grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, which allowed the team to build and field test prototype stoves in India. The team, now working on a redesigned stove based on the field test results, expects that an updated model will be available in limited quantities later this year. Team members expect to establish a profitable business within a few years.
Katie Lucchesi is a senior at Colorado State University and expects to graduate in 2007.
Karen Katen is retired Vice Chairman of Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company; and she is chairman of the Pfizer Foundation, the company's global philanthropic arm devoted to supporting healthcare access, education and community outreach initiatives.
Most recently, Katen served as President of Pfizer Human Health - the company's principal operating group, responsible for discovery, development, manufacture, distribution and commercialization of prescription medicines, and for providing a broad array of innovative human-health services. Katen joined Pfizer in 1974.
Karen Katen was named among the top ten in Fortune Magazine's ranking of "50 Most Powerful Women in Business" again in 2005, a list that included her for eight consecutive years.
Karen Katen received her BA and MBA from the University of Chicago, where she now serves as a University Trustee and a council member of its Graduate School of Business.
Alan Kligerman is the founder of AkPharma Inc. which makes and markets specialty products centered around food acid neutralization, including Prelief.
In 1974, Alan Kligerman started the business that was to become Lactaid Inc., now the world's leading company in the field of lactose-reduced milk and dairy products. He invented a calcium-fortified milk that is still the largest seller in the U.S. Lactaid Inc. was purchased by Johnson & Johnson in 1991. Mr. Kligerman then developed Beano®, an enzyme-based product for better digestion of numerous vegetables. This company is also the largest in its field and was sold to Block Drug Company in 1997.
Prior to founding Lactaid, Kligerman worked in the family business, Kligerman Dairies, both as a boy on the routes and later as an adult. The dairy was started in 1918 and operated until about 1964. He left the dairy in 1957 to start his own ice cream routes which evolved over some years into a specialty business, SugarLo Company, which made and sold dietary ice cream in most of the U.S. and Canada.
Alan Kligerman attended Cornell University.
Joanne Florino is the Executive Director of the Triad Foundation.
Prior to her role at the Triad Foundation, Florino began her work in the nonprofit sector in 1984 at Atlantic charities before taking a position with the Park Family Foundation. She worked for the Park Family Foundation until it split into two and became the Triad Foundation and the Park Foundation.
Joanne Florino holds a master's degree from Cornell University.